Network management systems have been used to configure, analyze, and troubleshoot network equipment in a communication network in the past. These systems have provided the ability to visualize the network, to provision new equipment in the network, to perform fault detection within the communication network, and to perform other diagnostic testing for identifying network problems. In some cases, the network management systems have been limited to working only with network equipment manufactured by a single vendor.
In conventional communication networks such as the public switched network, each network element needs to be configured. Generally that is an administrative task performed by a network management system. Once the network is provisioned and configured, the network management system develops and maintains the network topology. The network management system also has the intelligence to create the communication path within the network. In order to this in an automated way, the network management system transmits a set of commands to each of the network elements required for creation of the communication path. If the network management system lacks the automated intelligence to create the communication path, a network engineer is dispatched to create the required communication path manually. In either case, the network management system stores the communication path for future use.
Using information about the communication paths stored in the network management system, it becomes possible to analyze operational and performance characteristics of the communication network. For example, network capacity can be calculating by adding the set communication paths across communication links in the network. Network performance of each circuit in the communication network can be queried based on the communication path of that circuit. Network faults can also be correlated to indicate the communication paths that are affected by a network fault. For conventional communications networks, all this is done within the network management system.
Current communication networks based on technology such as asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and frame relay (FR) are more dynamic and complex. These networks are managed by network management systems that are different from their counterpart systems used in conventional communications networks. A network management system in current dynamic networks no longer maintains information on the communication paths set up and operating within the network. In addition, the network management system is no longer responsible for setting up communication paths to the individual network elements. Instead, the network elements in such dynamic networks individually store at least a limited, local portion of the network topology (e.g., the nearest neighboring network elements) and, based in part on this information, they create a communication path through the network by extending the path from one network element to the next. Each network element bears the responsibility for extending the communication path to its neighboring network element.
For the more dynamic and complex data networks today, there is no single place within the network or its management system in which to find communication paths stored. The network management system no longer has any information on the communication path. But, information about a particular communication path is distributed among the network elements that make up the path. An individual network element stores in a connection table only the portion of the communication path that extends from itself to the next node. Each individual network element also stores information in its topology table about link and routing addresses found by upstream network elements. Without information about communication paths in the network, analysis of the communication network is difficult, if not impossible. At best, current network management systems can only analyze traffic at the origination and destination points in the network but not for a call or a path at the points in between. These network management systems cannot perform a call-based or path-based analysis. In fact, the analysis of the communication network without such data lacks meaning since the network management system will not have any knowledge of the communication network.